Our Georgia-Free Democrats (OGFD), a party led by Irakli Alasania, has joined Labor Party’s call to constitutionally ban Mikheil Saakashvili to be nominated for prime ministerial post after his second and final presidential term expires in 2013.

The draft of new constitution, endorsed by the state commission on May 11 and which has yet to be discussed by the Parliament, envisages increase of PM’s authority at the expense of the presidential powers. A party, which will garner most of the votes in the parliamentary elections, will have the right to nominate a prime ministerial candidate.

OGFD has offered the state commission on constitutional reform to include in its draft of new constitution a provision that will ban the incumbent president from being nominated as prime minister for at least five years after the expiration of his presidential term.

When last month Labor Party, led by Shalva Natelashvili, offered the state commission to impose an outright ban on President Saakashvili to be named as the Prime Minister, the state commission responded that such ban would amount to violation of a person’s, in this case of Mikheil Saakashvili’s rights.

Tea Tsulukiani of OGFD said on July 2 that she agreed that imposing an outright ban would be a violation of a person’s rights and for that reason her party was offering to impose a five-year ban.

Zurab Abashidze, a senior official from OGFD and a member of Tbilisi City Council, said that such a provision in the constitution would help “to prevent usurpation of power.” He also said that Irakli Alasania would raise this issue with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton when the latter meets opposition representatives during her upcoming visit to Tbilisi on July 5.